Economic class
Economic classes are generally divided into the rich upper class or aristocracy, the middle class, and the poor lower class. People in the upper class are so wealthy that they don't have to work. The middle class work for a living midway in comfort between wealth and poverty. They can be either white collar or blue collar workers. The lower class are so poor that they often beg for alms as in the untouchables caste in India.
The conditions of the three classes has varied by time and place. In free societies, upward mobility makes it possible for poor people to become middle class, and this is rather common. Less frequently, middle-class people become rich.
In Communist countries, as in other highly stratified societies, people rarely change class. This is ironic, because Communists justify the revolutionary overthrow of "Capitalism" by saying they will create a classless society, but actually they just replace the old upper class of with a new one; see Nomenklatura.
Quotes from Lenin
- “The way to crush the middle class is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” -- Lenin
See also
- Social class and Economic class
- Upward mobility
- Aristocracy or Nobility
- Bourgeoisie - some say White collar
- Working class - or laboring class - some say Blue collar
- Working class values - American values - Real America
- Proletariat
- The poor - peasant or serf class or shudra and untouchables caste
- Welfare state and Class warfare
- Caste system
- Brahmins—priests and scholars
- Kshatriya -- warriors and nobles
- Vaishya -- merchants and farmers
- Shudra—artisans and those of the serf class.
- Untouchables—the lowest social class
